The unemployment rate measures the proportion of workers in the labor force who are currently out of work but are actively seeking work. People who haven't looked for work in the past four weeks are not included in this measure. First, the most obvious way the unemployment rate can fall is for unemployed people to find work and get it. Labor force participation remains the same, while the number of unemployed people is decreasing and the number of employees is increasing.
As mentioned above, the workforce is comprised of the employed and the unemployed. The rest of those who don't have a job and aren't looking for it are counted as people who aren't part of the workforce. Many of those who aren't in the workforce are going to school or are retired. Family responsibilities keep others out of the workforce.
Since the mid-1990s, generally less than 1 in 10 people who are not part of the workforce reported that they wanted a job. The questions used in interviews are carefully designed to get the most accurate picture of each person's activities in the workforce. Every month a series of questions are asked to people who are not part of the workforce to obtain information about their desire to work, the reasons why they did not look for work in the last 4 weeks, their previous job search and their availability to work. The working-age population is made up of all the people in a country who are old enough to be part of the labor force.
The United States has a highly qualified and mobile workforce that responds quickly to changing business needs. We estimated the trend in labor force participation and unemployment and found a substantial impact of the pandemic in the estimates of the trend. In addition, both employment and unemployment increase every month of June, when students enter the workforce in search of summer jobs. For national statistics on the CPS workforce or to enquire about the concepts and definitions described in this report, contact the CPS staff at BLS.
The labor force participation rate is the part of the population that works or seeks work. Since both the number of unemployed and the total labor force decrease in such a situation, it may not be obvious that the unemployment rate will actually fall. Respondents are never specifically asked if they are unemployed, nor are they given the opportunity to decide their own employment situation. Now, two years later, the labor market has mostly recovered from the depths of the pandemic recession.
Workforce activities take precedence over non-workforce-related activities, and working or having a job takes precedence over finding work. It is calculated by dividing the total labor force (employed plus unemployed) by the total non-institutionalized civilian population. When the population is classified according to employed, unemployed and non-members of the labor force based on their activities during a given calendar week, there are often situations in which people have performed more than one activity. These questions form the basis for estimating the number of people who are not part of the labor force but who are considered to be marginally linked to the labor force.
